Taliban claim responsibility for Lahore attack

Pakistani rescue worker struggle to recover an injured victim from the rubble at the site of suicide car bombing in Lahore, Pakistan on Wednesday, May 27, 2009. Gunmen detonated a car bomb near police and intelligence agency offices in Lahore on Wednesday, killing about 30 people and wounding more than 100 in one of Pakistan's deadliest attacks this year, officials said. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
— AP

Pakistani rescue worker struggle to recover an injured victim from the rubble at the site of suicide car bombing in Lahore, Pakistan on Wednesday, May 27, 2009. Gunmen detonated a car bomb near police and intelligence agency offices in Lahore on Wednesday, killing about 30 people and wounding more than 100 in one of Pakistan's deadliest attacks this year, officials said. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
/ AP

LAHORE, Pakistan 
A top leader of the Taliban in Pakistan has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack in Lahore and says it was revenge for the government's army offensive against the militants in the country's northwest.

Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to Pakistani Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud, told The Associated Press in a telephone call Thursday that the gun and bomb attack on police and intelligence agency offices in Lahore was connected to the military offensive in the Swat Valley.

"It was in response to the Swat operation where innocent people have been killed," Mehsud said.

About 30 people were killed and at least 250 wounded in Wednesday's attack in Lahore.

The little-known group Taliban Movement in Punjab has also claimed responsibility for the attack.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) – The government announced bounties Thursday for 21 leaders of Taliban militants in northwestern Pakistan, after saying that a massive gun and bomb attack that killed about 30 people in the east was likely linked to the insurgency.

The attackers – using guns, grenades and a van packed with explosives – targeted police and Pakistan's intelligence agency in the city of Lahore. Some 250 people were wounded in the Wednesday morning assault and blast, which mangled dozens of cars left a huge crater.

The attack in Pakistan's second-largest city, the capital of the Punjab province, was far from the restive northwest Afghan border region where the Taliban have established strongholds in Swat and other places and have faced a month-old army offensive.

It also was the third deadly assault since March in Lahore, a major intellectual and cultural center in Pakistan, following deadly assaults on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team and a police academy.

Officials fear militants may be choosing targets there to make the point that nowhere is beyond their reach.

A group calling itself Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab, or Taliban Movement in Punjab, took the blame for the bombing in a Turkish-language communique posted on Turkish jihadist Web sites Wednesday and referenced the fight in Swat, the SITE Intelligence Group said.

The claim could not be verified, and the militant group's relationship to the Taliban was unclear.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said militants were striking out because they were losing the fight with government forces battling to uproot extremists in the northwestern valley and tribal areas near Afghanistan.

"I believe that anti-Pakistan elements, who want to destabilize our country and see defeat in Swat, have now turned to our cities," Malik told reporters.

Officials said three suspects had been detained.

Washington and other Western allies back the Swat campaign and are watching it closely, seeing it as a test of Pakistan's resolve to combat the spread of extremism in Pakistan.

The government took out ads in several newspapers Thursday listing 21 Taliban leaders – 18 of them with pictures – and offering varying rewards for each, the lowest being around $12,400. The top bounty was $62,000 for top Swat Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah.